


Make It So Divine

by tenshi_who



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Intern!Leo, M/M, Model AU, Model!Cristiano, WIP
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 12:01:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1225534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenshi_who/pseuds/tenshi_who
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Model AU: Leo Messi is a no-name intern at Giorgio Armani and Cristiano Ronaldo is the new face of the Emporio underwear campaign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written ages ago for a prompt on the fk2. Bringing it back so I can finish it! Thank you to the lovely sparksfly7 for beta-reading this so carefully.
> 
> I'm on tumblr! [Stop by and say hi!](http://soliamosquedar.tumblr.com/)
> 
> EDIT: Yeah, probably never going to be finished. Sorry, guys, I've just lost my muse for this one...

“…And you see, this is the most important part,” the voice drones on. “This is vital: when you push this button it will ask you ‘Select Printer’. You’re going to pick this one, OK?” Leo’s eyes had glazed over long ago; he drags his eyes up to the general direction where the man is pointing, but doesn’t actually look at anything. He bites back a yawn.

The monotonous narration continues, “When you click this, the selected batch of frames will print to the studio printer, the one with the specific kind of paper blah, blah, blah.” 

Leo is trying to pay attention, swear to god he honestly is. But this is the third week of his internship and Leo had yet to “learn” much other than how to brew his boss’s favorite cups of coffee, how to turn the studio lights on and off, and, now, how to use a printer. 

When Tito Vilanova, Creative Director for Giorgio Armani, interviewed him, Leo was told repeatedly that this internship was “very hands on” and “a great learning experience” that would look just stellar on his résumé. His advisor at UPF encouraged him to take a semester off to intern and wrote him a glowing letter of recommendation. Vilanova signed him on for a semester at Armani, and assigned him to the tutelage of Xavi Hernández, the head of the audio-visual department who was incredibly skilled at his job, but who also could go on for hours about the importance of proper printing technique.

“- Intern!”

Leo blinks, Xavi’s voice penetrating through the fog. 

“Yes?” he asks, cringing in embarrassment at being caught not paying attention. 

“Did you hear anything I was telling you?” Xavi says, and his monotone voice has a hint of annoyance in it.

“Of course I did. I was, uh, I was…” Leo wracks his brain for anything. “I was contemplating the quality of the paper.” 

Xavi’s eyes light up, as if he’s thinking, ‘Finally! Someone that gets it!’ 

Leo plows on, “Yeah, just appreciating the, uh, glossiness and the ink pigmentation…” Leo trails off as he sees Xavi’s face fall at each word. He’s never been a good liar. 

The AV director sighs. “Just spare me, Intern. Go set up the conference room for the meeting later. When Tito’s got big news, he takes his coffee two teaspoons sweeter.” Xavi dismisses him with barely a disappointed look and shake of the head.

 

+

 

Tito seems have some awfully big news, if the atmosphere in the conference room is anything to go by. Everyone is tittering with excitement and whispering to each other, trying to figure out who’s got the most current gossip. 

Leo sets up the Starbucks-catered coffee and scones near the back of the room before taking his customary seat in the “intern’s corner” next to the telecommunications intern, Fábio. During these big company meetings, it’s Leo’s job to sit by and take notes, then report back to Xavi. The AV director is in the meeting too, and taking his own notes, but still makes Leo transcribe the meeting like a secretary. 

Tito walks in with an air of purpose and calm, and immediately the conversations dwindle off. The meeting starts off as usual, with sales figures, reports on the progress of Creative, the PR report, or maybe even the weather and the news, for all Leo knows. He’s never paid too much attention to these, so he’s not quite sure. His notes never make much sense, either.

“And finally, the most important thing,” Tito continues, and oh shit, Leo’s zoned out that entire meeting. He looks down at his notebook, blank except for today’s date and Tito’s name. He takes a nervous sip of his coffee, glancing at Xavi out of the corner of his eye, but the man is busy hanging on Tito’s every word. 

“We’ve finally heard back from Creative about the who’s doing our Fall/Spring Campaigns, and who’ll become the face of Emporio and Armani Jeans for the time being.” The entire room sits up at that, even Leo. He hadn’t been at Armani too long, but according to Xavi, they’d had a hard time filling David Beckham’s shoes (or in this case, briefs) since the Brit’s contract had ran out. Such a hard time, in fact, that they were about a month behind schedule. Women’s campaigns were all already done, some upstart Russian model whose name Leo never learned (Irina? Ivana?) stepping in for Megan Fox. But all work for Men was at a standstill until a model was chosen, leaving everyone at the line anxiously twiddling their thumbs.

“First off, the photographer.” A low groan fills the room. Tito, just say the model’s name already! 

“For this one we’ll be working with José Mourinho.” The groans are quickly replaced with little gasps of excitement. José Mourinho is one of the absolute best photographers around right now. He’s kind of like a Portuguese Mario Testino, the male Annie Leibovitz. Every click of his camera creates fantastic, unforgettable pictures, and he is especially talented at capturing the male form. Leo is looking forward to even being in the same room as him, watching his famously eclectic creative process unfold. 

“And for the model, we’ve hired Cristiano Ronaldo.” There’s a squeal from somewhere in the back of the room just as Leo starts choking on his coffee. The entire room all turns to look at him, and Fábio thumps his back, laughing. Andrés, the PR guy, chuckles, “Oh, I see Intern’s a fan, huh?”

Leo blushes. He’s a fan all right. He’s been a fan since he casually walked in to the cologne section at El Corte Inglés and his pupils were assaulted by the glorious image of Cristiano Ronaldo for Marc Jacobs. The man was perfectly tanned, oiled, and muscular and laying on golden giftwrap, like a gift from the gods above, naked, legs splayed and with only an oversized bottle of Marc Jacobs cologne leaving anything to the imagination. Leo was never quite the same, really, after seeing that.

He scratches at his cheek at the embarrassment of being the center of attention at such a time. “All I know is he was in some perfume ads or something,” he mumbles. 

Lie. 

Leo knows most of the major campaigns Cristiano Ronaldo has been a part of, and seen some of his runway shows. He keeps up with the Portuguese model’s career casually, paying attention when the man makes headlines in the industry. 

The story of how Cristiano got discovered is pretty well-known: a Real Models agent was vacationing in sunny Madeira when he saw a young Cristiano playing football by the beach with some friends. The agent, Aitor Karanka, stopped the teenager and, in a mix of Spanish, Basque, and possibly sign language, got the kid’s permission to let him take his picture. He’d sent it to Florentino Pérez, the head of RM Talent Scouting and quickly got a “SIGN HIM URGENTLY. WHATEVER IT TAKES.” email back in reply. 

Aitor did just that, talking Cristiano out of his dream of becoming a professional footballer for becoming a professional model instead. And now with Cristiano catching the eye of the likes of Marc Jacobs, Karl Lagerfield, and now Tito Vilanova at Giorgio Armani, it seemed like he had made the right choice.

“Creative is going to finalize their concepts by the end of the week, and Mourinho will be coming in on Monday to meet with them to discuss it. Cristiano is flying in Tuesday night, so shooting starts on Wednesday and wraps on Friday. Alright, everyone’s clear?” Tito asks. “Let’s knock this one out guys, we’re on a tight schedule this time.” The meeting adjourns with loud, excited chattering, everyone clustering around each other talking about the big announcements. Even Xavi’s normally deadpan face seemed enthused. 

It was going to be a little hurry-up-and-wait until “the talent” arrived next week, but at least Leo has something to look forward to as Xavi teaches him how to set up some wires or scan something. He fetches the coffee with a little more gusto, and the AV director even grudgingly complimented the quality of his prints one day. 

At the end of each night, Leo takes the metro across town to the UPF campus. He’ll trudge up to his dorm room and collapse on his mattress, exhausted. By his bed, right next to his desk, he has an “inspiration wall”: a collage of adverts and pictures he’s collected over the years. Cristiano Ronaldo’s Marc Jacobs ad is in there, those come-hither eyes reminding him of who he’ll be working with in just a few days. He ends up taking down that ad, because if he stares at it too long the butterflies in his stomach would keep him awake too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, [the Marc Jacobs ad I keep mentioning.](http://69.89.31.118/~melanix9/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/marc-jacobs-bang-ad.jpg)


	2. Chapter 2

Cristiano’s “Accommodation Requests” arrived the day before he did.

In the industry, when big name fashion houses sign a big name model to work their campaigns, they usually extend to the model the opportunity to make a few requests to make their workplace more accommodating, to make the model ‘feel at home’.

The employees unofficially usually called these requests ‘The List of Demands’.

And unfailingly, the job of fulfilling these requests always falls to the interns.

 

+

 

“Where the hell am I supposed to find ‘authentic Greek yogurt (beverage)’?” Leo whines, pointing out Item 2. “I didn’t even know yogurt came as a beverage.” 

The List is 14 items long and he’s splitting duty with Fábio, the telecom intern. They have to have everything sorted out before Cristiano arrives the next day, leaving the two with only a few hours to run all across town for these oddball things. 

Fábio gave him a look that screams, ‘you can’t be that ignorant’. “At least your shit you can just walk into a grocery store and get. But this- how do I even go about doing Item 6: ‘Various flower arrangements which feature foliage and flora native to southern Madeira’? Do we even get Madeiran flowers here in Barcelona?” 

“Is he even going to notice, though?” Leo wondered out loud. “Like, will he go up to a flower arrangement and say, ‘This is not a Madeiran flower’ and just walk out of the studio? You kind of think he’ll be a little too busy to notice shit like flowers, what with shooting three campaigns and filming two full videos in three days and all.”

Fábio shrugs in agreement. “So, who’s going to do Item 10?” he asks. Leo glances at the sheet. ‘All door knobs must be disinfected every two hours.’ He feels like slamming his head into his desk repeatedly. The butterflies from last week are pretty much all gone, replaced with a feeling of mild annoyance and a constant eye-twitch whenever anything Cristiano-related is mentioned. 

“What? Are our germs so beneath him that his beautiful immune system must not even be exposed to them?” he snips sarcastically, before drawing a sigh. “Look, let’s just do these real quick and get them out of the way. We’ll flip a coin on number 10 tomorrow, okay?” 

Fábio and he part ways, agreeing to come back to the studio an hour early the next day to set everything up. Leo sets out, planning out his long day and trying to figure how to book a pedicurist, sneak in Gucci towels to an Armani shoot, make a peanut butter and banana sandwich (‘with only organic peanut butter and unbruised bananas’), obtain a children’s pop-up book written in Portuguese, figure out what these ‘two bottles of La Mer’ even are, and have an entire smoothie station set up in the Green Room. All in less than four hours.

 

+

 

Cristiano isn’t due to arrive to the set until nine in the morning or so, but the crew is expected to arrive at least an hour beforehand to set up everything for the shoot. 

So that’s how Leo finds himself pulling up to the parking lot at 7:45 to set up the Green Room for Cristiano. There are a few cars already there from some crewmembers that are already working inside. Leo spots Fábio’s car a few spaces away. He can barely see the blond, spiky-haired head around all the colorful plants and foliage in his back and passenger seats. He climbs out of his car and heads over to Fábio’s, figuring the Portuguese would need help setting up all of Cristiano’s plants. 

“Good morning, sunshine!” Leo greets the scowling man sarcastically. Fábio is squinting sleepily like he still can’t get his eyes all the way open. He reaches for a tall, bright red flower arrangement from his passenger seat and thrusts it at Leo before getting up with a mumbled “good morning, asshole”. Leo turns the pot around in his hands, admiring it.

“What did you do, buy out the whole garden section?” he chuckles to Fábio, who’s busy getting some more plants from his car. “Are these really Madeiran?” he asks with suspicion. 

Fábio freezes. “What, do they not look like they’re from Madeira?” he whines, looking stricken. “The guy at the store kept saying that they’d be fine. He promised! OK, fine, they’re from Canarias. But it’s all the same, right?” The poor guy looked on the verge of a panic attack.

“Fábio! Fábio! Geez, calm down! They look fine; the guy will feel right at home. Quit worrying.” Fábio doesn’t look convinced, but sighs anyway, resigning himself to his fate. They grab a few more plants and make their way to the studio door, each carrying more than an armful and barely able to see over them. Fábio shoulders open the studio door.

The space inside is large and open, with light fixtures half set up, backdrops still on rolls, neon X’s dotting the floors along where certain items would soon be placed. There’s a little well-lit corner where hair and makeup would operate from, and next to them the wardroom closets are well stocked with the latest from Armani’s collections. Everything Cristiano would wear is on a separate rack. The Green Room is all the way on the other side of the studio, after the sets and the crew lounge. The studio space is eerily quiet in a way Leo’s only seen it early in the mornings, before the bustle and rush of the day’s work took over. 

Speaking of bustle, Leo thought, shouldn’t the light crew be bustling and rushing about right now and be finishing setting up? The set is completely empty, and all the crew seems to have taken a break. Leo and Fábio share a glance, perplexed. They shrug it off as, hey, not my job not my problem, and continue to the Green Room just wanting to dump everything off there. The flowers were not as light as they looked! 

The sound of raucous laughter breaks the silence, startling them. It was coming from the crew lounge. 

“Did they all decide to go on break?” Fábio wonders out loud, disbelieving. “Do they know what time it is? They’ve got like half an hour before Tito comes in and their lazy asses get into a shit-ton of trouble.”

“Let’s let them know,” Leo says to him, readjusting his grip on a precariously perched Crane Flower. “Maybe they lost track of time or something, you know?”

They head to the lounge and the smell of baked goods and coffees fill the air with every step. Breakfast break, then. The sound of laughter rings out again, along with unfamiliar voices, but Leo’s not really surprised about that. He doesn’t know many of the crew guys; they’re usually gone by the time he arrives, and they don’t know him as anything other than “Xavi’s Intern” anyways. The door is propped open and Leo pokes his head into the entryway.

“Hey there,” Leo calls out and six heads whirl around to look at him. “Do you guys know what time it is? Ti—”

His warning dies in his throat; actually, his throat just sort of shrivels up and cuts off his air, allowing only a little squeak and gasp to pass. Right there, laughing and having breakfast with the crew, is Cristiano Ronaldo.

He looks breathtaking, like a world-famous underwear model should look, Leo thinks. His face is still sort of half-smiling, the laughter from earlier lingering on his face. Even in the T-shirt and sweatpants he’s in now, he looks like someone should be photographing him right this second. 

Cristiano glances down at his watch (Audemars Piguet custom commissioned, Leo’s mind supplies) and looks back up at them. 

“Yeah, it’s 7:54,” he answers Leo’s half-question, and sniffles. Leo can’t even speak, and whoa, the butterflies are back. Great timing. He nods, if only to show he’s acknowledging that Cristiano spoke. Fábio squeaks and almost drops a hibiscus. 

“Oh, flowers! For me?” one of the crewmembers with a French accent and laughing eyes calls out. “So beautiful, you shouldn’t have!” Why? Why did the guy have to open his mouth? Now everyone is admiring Cristiano’s flowers, all the attention on them.

Cristiano gets up, smiling. “Sorry Karim, I think those are mine.” The crew laughs, mostly at the model, but a little bit with him, too. Cristiano is suddenly right in front of them, reaching for some of Fábio’s brightly colored African Tulips. “Let me give you a hand with these. Where’s the Green Room? Let’s put them there.”

Leo nods again. He looks over at the rest of the room, the crew already going back to sipping their coffees. The guy, Karim, mimes with this hand a mouth opening and closing, then quirks his eyebrow at him. Words. Right. Leo should use some of those.

“Thanks Mr. Ronaldo,” he says stiffly and he can see Cristiano cringe in front of him.

“No ‘Mr. Ronaldo’, please,” the model chuckles. “Just Cristiano, or Cris if you want. Ronaldo is not even my last name.” Leo’s cheeks twinge in embarrassment because he actually knew that. Cristiano cranes his head back to look at them. “And you? What are your names?”

“Fábio Coentrão,” the other intern answers and before Leo can introduce himself Cristiano whirls around to Fábio. 

“Coentrão? É português?” he switches back to his native tongue and Fábio perks up and answers him in kind. They’ve all sort of stopped by the door to the Green Room in the small hallway while Cristiano and Fábio are chattering like old friends while Leo struggles hold half of the Macaronesian floral ecosystem in his arms. He leaves them to have their Portuguese bonding moment for now, and tries to open the door when an arrangement of bright purple plumbagos tumbles to the floor. The Portuguese stop their conversation and before Leo can figure out a way to pick it up, Cristiano has already grabbed the flowers. 

“I’ll get it, don’t worry,” Cristiano says, switching back to Spanish for Leo’s benefit. “You picked these out, Fábio? They look great,” he admires. There’s a little tag that tells the name of the flower and Cristiano picks it up, mumbling ‘Plumbago? Huh.’ He turns the tag over and Leo’s heart sinks. The back of the tag, in nice bold, blue letters proudly proclaims “Product of the Canary Islands”. Out of the corner of his eye, Fábio turns pale, most likely seeing his job flashing before his eyes. But Cristiano just flips the tag back over without a word. 

“Plumbago,” he repeats. “I’ll have to get some for my mom’s garden when I go home next.” He steps into the Green Room, kicking down the stopper to hold he door open for them. They trade incredulous looks.

Once they’ve arranged the flowers on the coffee table, Cristiano turns back to them with a grin. “Good work team!” Cristiano announces, like he’s a coach or something, “Time for some sustenance, no? You guys want coffee and bagels? Croissants?” he invites, gesturing back toward the crew lounge.

“Oh, that’s your breakfast?” Leo’s surprised. He figured one of the guys brought it.

“Yeah, I brought the breakfast,” the model sounds sheepish, “everyone just gets here so early, you know?” he says, like that explains it all.

They have to finish putting out all the stuff from The List, so Fábio and Leo go back out to the parking lot for the rest of it while Cristiano hangs out in the lounge. They have to make two more trips for the flowers alone, and Cristiano looks scandalized at the sheer amount of nature Fábio had managed to fit in his car.

“I only meant like, a vase or two of flowers, not the whole botanical garden!” Cristiano laughed and Fábio ducks his head, a bit embarrassed to have gone so overboard. They finish putting up the rest of the stuff without a comment from an amused Cristiano. Looking at it in the Green Room the items on the List don’t seem like a lot, and they certainly serve to make the environment more inviting. The only time Cristiano had spoken up was when he caught sight of the Portuguese pop-up book Leo was carrying. 

“Is that the pop-up book?” he asks the intern and Leo nods. “Let me see it for a second.” Leo hands it to him and the model reads the cover and opens up the first page.

“It’s the Portuguese edition of The Jungle Book, I think.” Leo tells him. “It was my favorite story growing up,” he adds inanely, but Cristiano just nods, satisfied. 

“Thanks. That’ll go great with the Welcome To The Jungle theme we have in here now, huh?” Cristiano jokes. It’s true though; Fábio’s plants cover the whole solid left side of the room. 

They sit down for breakfast together after they’re done. Cristiano had set up two paper plates for them while they had been gone, placing a bagel and a croissant on each one. He had laid out plastic cutlery for them and poured them little steaming foam cups of coffee. He even folded a paper towel in half and tried to pass it off as a napkin. Leo finds it all so unbelievably charming he has to stare at his plate for a moment before he started eating.

Breakfast with Cristiano turns out to be a little bit more awkward than what Leo had been expecting from the Portuguese’s laidback attitude earlier. Cristiano had already eaten with the crew, so he mostly just makes small talk and discretely checks his phone while the other two eat. The conversation had regressed to ‘civilian in the presence of a celebrity,’ with questions about who Cristiano had worked with, what were they like, where has he traveled, and so on. The model gives diplomatic answers, but it’s obvious that the topic made him uncomfortable.   
Leo doesn’t know what to talk about. He could ask the obvious questions, like “why the flowers?” or “are you really going to read a pop-up book?” or even “an entire smoothie stand, really?” But that would probably make the model even more uncomfortable, so he settles for asking about the weather in South Africa during a past photo shoot. 

Tito bursts into the room in a sudden blur of nervous and creative energy, José Mourinho trailing after him at a decidedly calmer pace. They collect Cristiano and send him off for all sorts of lighting tests, and for clothing fittings, hair and make up, and a pre-shoot debrief. He gives Fábio and Leo a sort of apologetic smile as he leaves with Tito and José. 

“That was fucking weird,” Fábio speaks up once he and Leo are alone. “This whole thing was just weird.”

Leo hums in agreement, finishing off his bagel. To his credit, Cristiano had brought some really good schmears. 

Xavi wanders in a few minutes later and says, “Hey Intern, come here for a second. I need you to print something for me.”

Leo gets up and a thought absently crosses his mind at Xavi’s words. Cristiano never asked his name, did he? But the thought leaves as soon as he has it, and Leo dives into his work before he has a chance to think too hard about what that sudden knowledge is doing to his insides.


	3. Chapter 3

  

Cristiano arriving to the set so damn early had completely thrown off Tito’s schedule.

 

Leo could see the man was flustered, not used to “the talent” being punctual, let alone early. For example, the last model they worked with, that Russian girl Irina, had showed up about an hour and a half past her scheduled time, mumbled something about her dog Cesare feeling jet lagged, then just got to work like nothing happened.

 

They had been expecting Cristiano to be at least half an hour late, so most of the staff is not even at the studio yet. Tito sends out a frantic WhatsApp text to the staff group message that was normally used for announcements and emergencies. Leo got it on his phone; it read: “ **ATTENTION. everyone working the emporio shoot!! please report to the studio IMMEDIATELY. cristiano is already here so we are going to start now! he doesn’t want to wait & NO i’m not kidding you!!**”

 

Replies pour in immediately, ranging from the succinct, “ **wtffff!?** ” to the whining, “ **wait I havent even eaten yet tito!** ”.

 

Leo doesn’t really think that was fair of Tito; Cristiano has not mentioned anything about not wanting to wait and didn’t come off as impatient. In fact, he seems quite content to just lie around and watch the crew going about their business and just mess with his phone. He hasn’t complained once, probably because it was his own damn choice to show up over an hour early. Leo feels an inexplicable need to defend the model, so he types out “ **cristiano brought breakfast for the crew. theres still bagels and coffee left if u haven’t eaten…** ”

 

The replies come in just as fast: “ **breakfast for the CREW? well damn!”** and **“wait how early did he get there?!** ” Leo clicks his phone off and gets back to setting up some cables for Xavi’s computer.

 

 

+

 

 

They end up starting almost an hour early. When Cristiano comes out of hair and make up a little while later looking like a Greek statue, Leo has to do a double take. This is the Cristiano Ronaldo that Leo was used to seeing, immaculate and polished and emblazoned across magazines and billboards. The Cristiano from breakfast, the slouchy, sniffly, and unkempt Cristiano, was replaced by this Professional Underwear Model Cristiano.

 

His eyebrows are tweezed to perfection, and makeup has done a good job of hiding his tired looking under-eye circles and covering up the freckles dusted across his nose. His hair, which had beencurly and untamed earlier in the morning, was now gelled razor-sharp. Even his toes look perfect, not that Leo has checked him out literally from head to toe or anything.

 

He’s got at least half a dozen people surrounding him as he walks up to the set. They poke and prod at him, adjusting his hair, pinning something somewhere, spraying something at him. Leo thinks that maybe it’s all a little bit much, but then again, they know better than he does. He’s a little disconcerted by the change though; he’s not sure what the right word for it, but now suddenly Cristiano looks too… intimidating? Unapproachable? Whichever it is, it makes him a bit uncomfortable.

 

He doesn’t have much to do while the actual shooting is taking place, no one really does except Mourinho and Cristiano unless Tito says something, so Leo has plenty of time to just sit back and watch two industry greats attheir job. Leo’s job actually starts after the pictures are taken; Xavi (and by extension, Leo) have to pull up the frames for Tito and Mourinho and go through them with them, pointing out any bad angles or awkward shadows or bad compositions or generally anything that would make them have to re-shoot. They do that several times until Mourinho captures exactly what Tito was asking him to. Then, Xavi takes all the ‘good’ pictures and sorts them, categorizes them, and primes them for editing. Categorization is Xavi’s baby, so Leo probably won’t do anything but watch then, either.

 

In the meantime, Leo is fascinated by the interaction between Cristiano and Mourinho. It’s incredible how little talking the photographer does while shooting; another photographer that Leo had worked with during Irina’s photo shoot a few weeks ago had kept up a constant narration of cheesy “work the camera, girl”, and “hold that there, baby” that grated even on Leo’s nerves, not to mention Irina herself.

 

Mourinho, on the other hand, says almost nothing to Cristiano, just a few guiding words here and there. When Cristiano hits a good pose, Mourinho would make a little pleased noise and Cristiano would automatically hold it for him, the photographer’s click-click-clicks doubling in speed. If Cristiano turns so much as a shoulder or moves a foot out of place, Mourinho would chide him with a click of the tongue or a quiet “Cristiano” and the model would know exactly what to do to fix it.

 

Sometimes Tito would interrupt with suggestions like “maybe more light on this angle?” and “what if Cristiano turns the other way?” Mourinho would always ignore him with a dismissive wave of his hand, like he’s caught up in some artistic momentum or something. Tito’s right eye would always start to twitch when he was ignored. A few minutes later however, without fail, Mourinho would say something like “this side is a little dark” or “Cristiano, turn,” as if it was all his idea in the first place. Tito’s eye-twitch would go into overtime, as if Mourinho’s casual disregard was poking him right in the eye.

 

Leo is also fascinated by how body-conscious Cristiano is. The model is so in tune with all of his body’s movements and what looks best on the camera. The right tilt of the head and suddenly Cristiano’s eyes are catching the lights, highlighting a perfect jawline and chiseled cheekbones. The right move of an arm and suddenly the muscles in his abs and sides are rippling. Leo didn’t even know it was possible to have ‘rib-muscles’ so defined; he didn’t even want to know how long Cristiano spent at the gym working on his body.

 

Cristiano is also a fucking tease, Leo thought. He knows just how far to drag down the waistband of his jeans before it’s indecent, showing off deep indentations at his hips and a peek of the Armani logo on his briefs. At one point, the model had glanced up to find half the room staring at him, Leo included (and, amazingly, Xavi included as well). He gets this mischievous glint in his eyes and slowly works open the buttons of his fly.

 

First button…

 

Second button…

 

The model stops there, not smiling or smirking at the camera but the mirth clear in his eyes. There is a squeal from somewhere near the makeup corner. Leo holds his breath.

 

“Cristiano,” Mourinho admonishes him absentmindedly, focused on getting the shot.

 

Cristiano sighs and undoes his last button and Leo actually has to turn away lest he find himself in a very embarrassing situation in front of his supervisors.

 

 

+

 

 

They do the shots in batches of twenty or thirty, and then Cristiano has to be pulled off set for wardrobe change or for adjusting this and that. Mourinho and Tito take this time to head over to Xavi’s computer, both of them leaning over Leo and Xavi’s shoulders to look at the shots Mourinho had taken. They’d discuss, or in their case, argue over the photos, with the Creative Director concerned about logos and design and the photographer more concerned about composition and his ‘artistic vision’.

 

Leo knows abstractly that Cristiano is a model, but it i **s** a whole other thing to hear him discussed as nothing more than a glorified clothes hanger or a piece of art to look at. He glances over at the Portuguese, seeing him surrounded by people again, oiling him up and scrutinizing his fingernails and now wearing a completely different yet identical-looking pair of jeans. It makes him a bit uncomfortable, seeing Cristiano just standing around being normal when this conversation is going on behind him.

 

When he’s not being prodded and fawned over, Cristiano is napping on the couch between outfit changes. Leo imagines he must be tired and jet lagged; not two days ago he was in New Zealand filming something for some swimwear brand he endorsed. He also seems to have picked up a cold somewhere during his transcontinental travels, if all his sneezing and sniffling is any indication. Item 10 on his List suddenly makes a bit more sense; Leo finds himself wanting to disinfect all surfaces near Cristiano’s vicinity anyways.

 

Thankfully the disinfection job falls to Fábio: the Portuguese intern had come over during one of the breaks in shooting with a bottle of Lysol to discuss who was going to disinfect what, if they were going to take turns, etc.

 

Xavi had glanced up from his computer, and cut him off with a bland, “Yeah no, I don’t think that’s gonna work, Telecom Intern.”

 

Fábio and Leo looked at him quizzically and the man went on with an annoyed sigh. “You’re going to have to talk to your supervisor, but I can’t spare my intern right now. He’s very crucial for this process, and I need him here.”

 

To be honest, staring at Cristiano was all Leo had been doing during ‘this process’, but he is definitely not going to argue. He feels a little twinge of guilt whenever he sees Fábio rushing around with the Lysol, but then he looks up and sees Cristiano smoldering at the camera in various states of undress and he knows he could definitely live with that guilt.

 

During one of the breaks, Cristiano somehow falls dead asleep on one of the sofas in the Green Room. Tito and Mourinho’s intense arguing gave the model a longer break than usual, so after stopping by hair and makeup he slinks away from set and disappears into the back. Now with their ‘artistic differences’ sorted out, the two look around to find the star of their show was missing.

“Where is Ronaldo?” Tito calls out, and everyone responds with a shrug. “Can someone go look for him? We don’t have all day. It’s already one thirty!” Nobody moves, but they look around a bit, as if Cristiano is going to magically appear in some corner or something.

 

“Um,” Leo speaks up, and now all the attention is on him, “I think he might be in the Green Room or something. I don’t know, but it’s pretty tricked out and he might be in there.”

 

“Well then. Go. Get. Him,” Tito responds slowly, as if saying ‘this is obvious’. Leo gets up and heads back to the Green Room, and from somewhere back in the telecom station, he hears Fábio’s annoyed voice: “But I thought Leo was crucial!” Xavi whirls around and while Leo can’t quite see the face he makes at Fábio, it quickly shuts up the other intern with a squeak.

 

Cristiano is indeed in the Green Room and he’s completely asleep. He is lying face down on the couch with his head uncomfortably pillowed on a large cushion. His mouth is sort of hanging open, since his nose must have been stuffy, and his face was sort of smushed on the cushion with half his hair messed up. His phone is on the floor with a ‘New Text Message’ notification light on, along with an empty bottle of his ‘authentic Greek yogurt (beverage)’, and a balled up tissue. He’s also snoring.

 

It’s probably the most unattractive he’s seen the underwear model look in his life but for a reason inexplicable to Leo it makes him want to just cover him in a blanket and, like, take him home and make him hot chocolate and cuddle him or something.

 

Whoa there, brain. Slow down.

 

Before his mind can perv on the sleeping model anymore, Leo leans over and crouches, shaking his shoulder with a hushed “Hey Cristiano! Cristiano!” The model wakes with a start, spazzing out a bit and mumbling a gruff “que?!” before looking around and realizing where he is.

 

He rubs his eyes and looks over at Leo. “Oh, it’s you,” he yawns. “Wha’s your name again?” he asks, turning over to stretch like a cat and then just lying there boneless for a bit, arms strewn above his head.

 

“Um, it’s Leo. Lionel Messi, but just Leo is fine.”

 

Cristiano nods. “Good to m- well, good to finally know your name, actually.” He smiles, eyes crinkling and with cushion lines down his face, and moves to get up. Leo doesn’t know what to say, so he nods back. The silence stretches out a beat too long and Leo still hasn’t said anything. Why is he here again?

 

Cristiano glances around awkwardly. “Is it time to go back, or what?” he asks gently, as if realizing that maybe Leo is still a bit star-struck around him. And, god, that’s not at all what Leo wants Cristiano to think of him as, some little star-struck girl who can’t even form two sentences around him.

 

“Yeah,” Leo clears his throat, “Mourinho and Tito are all done arguing and then they realized you were gone,” he says with a smile. Conversation, he can do this.

 

Cristiano chuckles a bit. “They’re done? And this time it only took them…” He glances at his cellphone on the ground and pokes a toe at the ‘home’ button to read the time, “twenty minutes this time.” Cristiano’s New Text Message is still on the screen and he stops to read it. Overcome by curiosity, Leo looks down and does the same.

 

**From: M Ö**

“ **àbac on ave. tibidabo, room #439. 10 is good 4 me** ”

 

Leo’s eyebrows rise as he recognizes the name of the luxury hotel and the realization that Cristiano had probably been setting up a booty call or something before falling asleep.

 

“It’s not what it looks like!” Cristiano laughs, seeing the scandalized look on his face. Leo looks up, eyebrows still raised. He lowers one brow, leaving the other one quirked up like ‘oh really now?’ “I swear, it’s probably not what you are thinking.”

 

“Probably?!” Leo chokes out a laugh.

 

“Wellll,” Cristiano brings a hand up to his messed up hair, looking sheepish. “That’s my good friend Mesut. We did Calvin Klein a few seasons ago together, and I haven’t seen him in a while. We always hook up when both of us happen to be in the same city.” He hesitates seeing Leo raise both his eyebrows at him again. “OK, maybe ‘hook up’ is not the right terminology. Well actually, maybe it is. But only sometimes!” Cristiano scrambles seeing Leo’s increasingly shocked face.

 

Leo puts both his hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m not judging you. You do whatever you want, it’s cool. You don’t have to hide it or whatever. It’s none of my business anyways.” To be honest, he’s not really that surprised or appalled; this is pretty mild compared to a lot of stories he’s heard, and a lot safer than prowling bars or something. He’s actually a bit amused at how Cristiano is reacting. It’s not like the guy has the cleanest reputation; he’s read enough gossip mags to know Cristiano’s exploits are pretty wild, to say the least.

 

“No, I know you’re not judging me. I hope.” Cristiano gives him a pointed look. “It’s just, I don’t know. The look on your face makes me feel weirdly guilty, like I’m doing something wrong.” He shrugs, looking down at his phone. “Like you’re disappointed.”

 

Leo hesitates. Is he disappointed? Under the amusement and the bit of shock, yeah, he is a bit disappointed. He hasn’t worked with too many professional models, but from his experience with Irina Shayk and all of the stories he’s heard, Cristiano seems pretty different from the rest. And subconsciously, he was hoping that, somehow, Cristiano would be different in this, too. But does it really matter to Cristiano what Leo thinks?

 

“Look, I’m not di—”

 

“Intern.”

 

Leo whirls at Xavi’s voice and Cristiano lets out a yelp of surprise. They both take a step back, and Leo just now realizes they were pretty close, standing over Cristiano’s phone. Xavi has that vaguely annoyed look on his face, the same one he generally wears when Leo is around.

 

“Oh, is it time to go back already?” Cristiano speaks up, trying to save face for them.

 

“Yes. That’s what the intern was _supposed_ to have told you. Ten minutes ago.” Xavi nails him with an accusatory look, but all Leo can think is ‘I really hope he didn’t hear our conversation’.

 

“I going to tell him that,” Leo starts, “but I noticed that he… uh… looked a little sick! Yeah, and so I got him some tissues,” he points out the tissues on the ground and Cristiano nods emphatically, “but he was coughing and he was… thirsty. So I got him some of his special yogurt.” He points at the empty bottle of Greek yogurt on the ground and Cristiano puts on a pathetic face and nods again, not looking at all convincing. “So he drank it but he drank it really slowly because he was coughing but now he feels all better.”

 

Xavi blinks at him.

 

Cristiano coughs a bit for effect. “Yeah, all better.”

 

“Well, I’m glad you’ve healed our ailing star,” Xavi drawls, not sounding at all like he cares either way, “but Tito is going to blow another gasket if he’s allowed any more time to fight with that photographer again. And, uh, you might want to stop by hair and makeup first, Cristiano.” The model’s hair is still sticking up crazily and his ‘tan’ might have smudged off a bit.

 

“What? Does it look bad?” he asks worriedly, putting his hands up as if to feel what Xavi is seeing.

 

“You just have a little something right there.” Xavi vaguely gestures around Cristiano’s entire face area. “But they’ll take care of it.”

 

Cristiano leans down and picks up his phone before heading out the room with a nod at the other two.

 

Leo picks up the rest of Cristiano’s trash and throws it away and then turns to Xavi with a sheepish look. “Let’s get out there then, huh?” He goes to make a move toward the door when Xavi catches his arm.

 

“Intern,” he says, eyes still bland and looking still vaguely annoyed. “Don’t let yourself get disappointed. They’re all the same, models. Okay?”

 

He wants to argue, to stand up for Cristiano or against generalizations against models in general, but the look on Xavi’s face stops him in his tracks. Xavi looks like a man who knows all too well what he’s talking about.

 

Leo nods slowly. “Okay.”

 

Xavi nods back at him, then lets go of his arm. They walk back to the studio in silence, thoughts racing through Leo’s head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moving along at a snail's pace here, sorry.


End file.
